It’s the question that we get asked more than any other. In fact, we’ve bet getting asked it for years:

“How long does it take to get results?”

The problem is, there is no honest answer.

Or, even worse, the honest answer is – “we don’t know”.

We can give a vague answer based upon the experience of building our own sites and the feedback from those in the AH community. Nowadays, we will estimate that you will begin to get results within 6-18 months.

For example, Gael built a website as a case study for The Authority Site System (TASS). Now (August 2017), we are around 8 months down the line and that site is making $300-500 per month without any link building at all.

There is definitely a degree of luck involved there but there are a number of other factors too. That’s why in today’s podcast, Gael and Mark are breaking down this loaded question to get to the bottom of how long it takes to get results and what you can do to shorten the timespan.

Factors Affecting the Time it Takes to be Successful

Experience

Experience helps. It’s as simple as that.

If everything is brand new to you, if you have no experience in internet marketing it is going to take a lot longer to wrap your head around the logic.

The whole process is pretty straight forward once you know it, a lot of it is more putting the work in than anything else.

But, in order to put the work in you need to understand what you are doing in the first place.

Gael at this point has built over 30 sites and worked on hundreds of client sites. At this point, it is almost second nature.

The TASS site was built within one week from start to finish.

This isn’t realistic for a normal person. We would expect someone working pretty damn hard to complete the work involved in building a TASS site in two months minimum.

In reality, if you are working full-time, have a wife and kids at home and then any kind of social life on top of that whatsoever, you could be looking at up to a year to get all the work done. Especially if you are not coming from an internet marketing background.

Niche Difficulty

In TASS, we spend a lot of time doing niche research. There is a reason for this.

If you are launching your first site, the chances are that you do not have a great deal of resources to commit to it.

In order to start generating some cash quickly, it makes sense to choose an easier niche. The amount of cash you generate may not be as much in some of the more competitive niches but it will give you the capital reinvest in tackling the niches than can make $100k per month.

So, to begin with, we recommend going after the low hanging fruit. This should expedite the incubation period for success.

Work Ethic

This one is all you. Not to sound too much like GaryVee but it’s all about the hustle.

We can tell you that it might take a year to for your site to become successful but if you are sitting in your pants all day eating fruit loops, it’s never going to happen.

Obviously, as we mentioned earlier, circumstances play a role.

If you have a demanding job and a busy personal life, you are not going to have a lot of time dedicated to working on your site.

However, if you’re a student, you just bum about all day, not in a relationship, unemployed – you know, a real catch – the you can literally spend all your waking time on the site. And, it’s a good investment to make.

It really is about getting rid of that wasted free time. The time you spend on Reddit or binge watching Game of Thrones and channeling that spare time into working on your site.

If you are really taking it seriously, we would suggest that you need to be spending at least 6-8 hours per week on your site. Remember, this is the bare minimum. Ideally, you would be spending as much time as possible on it.

Luck

No-one particularly wants to hear this but there is a degree of luck in being successful.

As we mentioned earlier, the TASS case study site is doing pretty well. This was a bit of a shock given that it is an early stage site, built in one week, there has been no link building and Gael really does not know anything about the topic.

In our eyes, it is the bare minimum required to start making money with a site. It was designed as a platform that you use to build a successful site on top of.

However, Google likes it.

It ranks for some keywords that make us money.

There are reasons for this (including spending a lot of time researching the niches and comprehensive keyword research) but we would be lying if we didn’t admit there was a degree of luck involved.

On top of all these factors, you are starting with a disadvantage when it comes to Google. They don’t really like new websites. From experience, it takes around 6 months before Google begins to trust you and start sending some traffic your way.

Commonly referred to as the “sandbox” period, Google basically wants to see you working hard, regularly updating your site and playing by the rules before they start rewarding you by ranking your content.

So, after 6 months, we usually see sites get a bump in traffic and then again after 1 year.

Follow Best Practise to Cut the Wait Period

We recommend that people build their site initially on organic traffic from Google search.

Ranking in Google is a funny business.

The problem is that we cannot say with 100% accuracy what causes something to rank in Google.

However, over the years lots of people have, through trial and error, developed a range of tips, tricks and techniques that have been shown to work more often than not.

No one person knows completely how Google’s search algorithm works. In fact, with the introduction of AI to the process, even Google themselves do not understand it 100%.

But, what SEOs do, is to create their own version of the Google algorithm in their own mind based upon their experiences over the years.

Instead of starting from scratch, lean on others who have been there and done it before. There are lots of people out there teaching, not just us.

There are people you can and people you can’t trust. Other than ourselves, you can check out people like Chris Lee over at Rank XL or Jon Dykstra.

Just remember, there is no one correct way to do this. Each SEO has their own internal algorithm which is their interpretation of how Google works. People tend to base their own algorithm on what has worked for them.

Real Life Examples – How Long did it Take?

TASS Case Study Site

This site was built in November 2016. After 6 months it was making around $500. This was without building links, it was purely from good keyword research and, if we are honest, pretty average articles.

Perrin’s New Site

As I’m sure you know by know, Perrin sold Here Pup. After around 5 months or so, it is getting around 1k hits per month.

We haven’t discussed how much money it’s making and I couldn’t quite put a figure on it.

Brian from TASS

Three months after launch, Brian from TASS made his first $100. This is really good for a three month old site. You could easily see this site making $1k per month before too long.

Conclusion

To sum things up, there are a few things you can do to speed things up a bit.

Get More Experience – You can get more experience by reading blog posts, listening to the podcast and interacting with other online marketers to get help and advice.

Do the Research – Pick an easy niche to begin with. Go through the process, iron out any kinks and make a little bit of money. Pick keywords that are easy to rank for. You can then reinvest this money into a new site that can challenge in a niche with more opportunities.

Work Harder – The more time you spend working on your site, the quicker it is likely to be successful. Try and get rid of your wasted downtime and dedicate it to your site.

Luck – It plays a part. If all else fails, you can just start dating Gael – it seems to make a difference.

If you are ready to get started, check out our online course TASS. It is a comprehensive, step by step guide showing some of the best practises that we apply to build successful site.

Hey, I'm Danny! I write full-time for Authority Hacker. I came from a background of more traditional marketing before I started work for a large affiliate marketing site a couple of years ago. Now I travel the world, write, market and watch sports!

Hi Guys, great advice although I think the parting guidance of “Get more experience” to be a little off putting. I, like many, spent a lot of time consuming content before actually doing the work. Sure, we should always be learning and who knows if I didn’t do all that time reading and listening maybe I wouldn’t be as far on the journey as I am today (still a ways to go).

Learning quickly and executing separates the good from the great in the online world IMO.

This was a truly honest podcast.Your answers to the questions made for good advice for someone, like myself, that is just starting. Thanks much. I don’t want to have false expectations. And to have you guys validate that it takes time, that it is a journey, is a good feeling that will help to inspire me to continue.